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I do have this real desire to push the boundaries, I have a natural curiosity about anything that looks vaguely dangerous and risky. It’s not something that I have to experience only once though, I’m a serial offender. I stim on excitement. I'm sure the marshmallows have all got up to some pretty crazy stuff in their times. The differences are very clear to me now. Marshmallows generally appear to plan their adventures. It’s called Risk Identification. Calculating a risk and thinking about the possible results is not something that jellybeans do well.

Jellybeans jump and bounce all over the place, stimming. Imagine a load of hot sweaty-faced jellybeans, flappy arms, the real deal. Why are they so worn out? You haven’t noticed any difference in the physical stim but then they haven’t been at home very much recently…….

Let this ring alarm bells in your head. Playing on train lines, climbing roofs or visiting the most noisy, colourful Amusement Arcade - take note parents, arcade games are very attractive for jellybeans. They stimulate our busy brains with heaps of neon lights, music, doinge doinge noises as the pennies hit the steel trays. It’s exciting, it’s dangerous, it’s not allowed BUT it stops us thinking of what is really bothering us, and it recharges our batteries.

Remember when I was talking about stimming, earlier, I said ir brings us back to life. I mentioned that jellybeans often appear unbelievably lazy. Your jellybean child will be the one who can sleep through the house flooding or World War Three breaking out in his bedroom, if the mood takes him. He can sleep for 72 hours at a stretch. He can even fall asleep in the middle of a meal. Sometimes it’s a SYSTEM OVERLOAD that makes him do this, sometimes it’s because what goes up must come down and three tsunamis in two days have cleared out all his reserves, but sometimes it’s just because he’s who he is.

The official expression for this is autistic inertia. So sometimes he’s sleeping because he can’t think of anything else to do. And that’s a fact. Having an adventure is a stim that breaks the spell of inertia. It’s like being kissed by the handsome prince. Except that adventures can be another word for conduct disorder or unacceptable social behaviour, or worse.

And if this bit is really getting to you and bells bigger than that massive one on your industrial strength alarm clock have started ringing in your head, ask yourself some questions about your own jellybeans, and don’t stop asking them -

Where have they been?Who have they been with?Where are they NOW?

Does your jellybean son have a fascination with motorbikes, cars and all things fast? Is he hanging around with the wrong gang? A secretive jellybean who isn’t where they should be are usually up to mischief.Trouble is they DO actually know they are doing wrong, which is why they don’t tell you where they're going. STIMMING

Come on admit it, how many of you are happy in the knowledge that your kids are building a bonfire with half the slats from the bunk bed in a secret den with another red jellybean? STIMMING

Your 14-year-old is jumping into boy-racer cars, with huge red jellybeans and careering around your local town wreaking havoc and putting their own and others lives at risk? STIMMING

Your 11-year-old stroppy son has disappeared into the depths of you know who’s house, the one with the grubby curtains, and Woodstock in the back garden complete with the contents of a herb garden? STIMMING

The twelve-year-old Demanding Daughter, the one that nicks your makeup, perfume and really special salt scrub, has tiptoed up to the door complete with a carrier bag of very revealing clothes. Well do you need all that for a sleepover with her mate? It was pyjamas, toothbrush and Teddy in my day. STIMMING

Get the picture yet? These kids are stimming. They can and do repeat the dangerous behaviour over and over again. It produces a sense of reality in a weird way.

Jellybeans get confused with shades of emotion so when they find a big emotion that they understand, they’re understandably attracted. It feels SAFE, because it’s predicted. It’s the one SYSTEM they know, its the one thay have had the most practice with. It has been learnt and more importantly it has been repeated. It’s a STIM! This SYSTEM is break the rules, do something stupid, push the boundaries, tell a Copper to f... o..? The rest is History.

Trouble is the only word for these STIMS. Oh, and don’t worry you can still stim very dangerously from the comfort of your own homes.

Do you? Do your kids? Just what computer program are they accessing RIGHT NOW?